How To Write Percy Jackson On A Swim Team
by AnotherFacelessAuthor
Summary: Hi. Lifelong swimmer here and avid Percy Jackson fan. I've read many a fanfiction about Percy being a swimmer (now cannon thanks to ToA), and many of them are oh so very wrong. This isn't a story, it's a guide to HS swimming to assist you lovely fanfiction writers. I will answer questions. Please comment if your experiences with swim have been different.


Okay y'all hi

As summary suggested this is not strictly a fanfiction but more like a guide to help YOU write fanfiction, especially since "Percy on the swim team" is so popular and now, thanks to Trials of Apollo, canon.

As someone who has swam since she was 7 and done all 4 years of high school swim, intending to swim in college, I have a pretty good idea of how swim team works. So if you wanna write a proper swim meet, listen up.

First, notice I say SWIM team and SWIM meet. Not swimming team or swimming meet or swimming practice. Swim. Also, they are meets. Not competitions but most people got that.

Next. Boys and girls are on different teams in high school. If you're on a club team they may practice together but they do not compete in a race against eachother. However, I'm gonna stick to how HS swim works and if y'all have questions about club swim y'all can review or PM me.

Girls swim is in the fall (usually starts during August) and ends in October. I'm a girl so I know more about that but Guys swim starts in late October and goes until Febuary I think?

There is practice every day after school. Every damn day. Likely two hours. Likely they will have some morning practices too. It sucks, but there you go. Guys swim will have practice over winter break.

Four strokes: Freestyle (most common), backstroke, butterfly (most physically demanding), breastroke (just hardest to get right).

Events: One down and back is a 50 right? Longest event is a 500 freestyle (only FR has a 500) The only stroke with a 50 and 200 is also FR. Events, in order, if you care:

200 Medley relay (4 people do a 50 of one stroke in order BA, BR, FL, FR)

200FR

200IM

50FR (most common event for weaker swimmers and those who haven't found their niche)

*a break for another warm up and for divers to compete if you have divers*

100FL

100FR

500FR

200FR Relay (each person does 50FR)

100BA

100BR

400FR relay (each person does 100fr)

JV and Varsity practice together and compete at most same meets (some invitationals are V or JV only). How they do it is event 1 will be JV Medley Relay, then Event 2 is Varsity medley relay and so on and so forth. In a normal meet you should only have 2 heats of each event, max. Often smaller teams won't have enough to fill entire roster though. 500 commonly only has 1 heat.

Okay since Percy is always depicted as an amazing swimmer here are some sample times to give him. 21-23s is proba good for 50FR. 50s range for 100FR. Sub 5m (maybe between 4:20-4:40) for 500FR. (I just read a fanfic where coach told team to swim 15 laps in 2m. Whether they imagined a lap as a 25 or 50 that is physically impossible.)

At a normal duel meet you don't get ribbons or medals. You swim you're event and then you wait for your next one. I read a fanfic one where they like Hunger Games styled it where Percy kept swimming heat after heat of same event until only two were left or some shit? No. False. So very false.

May invites (where more than 2 teams compete, often even teams even out of your conference) do have medals and podiums.

duel meets are typically on Friday (but I have had some on Tuesday or Thursday they absolutely suck). Invites are typically on Saturday.

ALSO

IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW GOOD PERCY CAN SWIM PEOPLE DONT GIVE A CRAP ABOUT SWIMMING

I mean they just don't. Swim team will never be the sport people love to watch or cheer for. Fanfics are not the only people who don't know that. It's cool. At least I should say I've never heard of a real school that cares that deeply about swim. Even really good swim teams usually don't get that much hype cause typically if you're good at swim you're good at every sport, school wise. Feel free to review and comment if I'm wrong. Basically swimmers work super hard and usually get very little notice. Except during swimming units in gym. Then you're a magic creature.

I can't think of anything else but I will answer any other swim related questions.

Happy writing.


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